The invention relates generally to computer systems, and deals more particularly with generation of problem tickets for a computer system.
Computer systems often experience problems such as overflow of buffers, exhaustion of storage allocated to an application, hard drive failures, power outages, software errors and resource constraints. When such a problem occurs or when a system condition exceeds a threshold suggesting an impending problem, a known hardware or software monitor within the computer system detects the “event”, and sends an alert to a system console or a remote system. In either case, an operator or administrator will notice the event, and may take some corrective action. It was also known for the operator or administrator to create a “problem ticket” if warranted. To determine whether a problem ticket was warranted, the operator or administrator considered the type of problem and in some cases, the contractual obligations to the customer. When the problem ticket is warranted, the operator or administrator creates the problem ticket by obtaining an electronic form through a workstation, and entering the following information: customer name, problem type, severity level, source of problem (i.e. identity of hardware or software component) within the customer's computer system, operating system, network, and application. The operator or administrator then sends the problem ticket by e-mail to a suitable technical support person or support center for handling, i.e. correcting the problem. While the foregoing technique for determining whether to generate a problem ticket, generating the problem ticket and sending the problem ticket to the support person was effective, it required significant effort by an operator or administrator.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to automate the process of determining whether to generate a problem ticket and if warranted, automate the process of generating the problem ticket and sending it to a suitable support person.